


Delaney

by RurouniHime



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Babies, Confessions, Humor, M/M, Mpreg, Past Relationship(s), Reconciliation, Succubi & Incubi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-25
Updated: 2011-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 01:26:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry takes a sip from his blue-striped (and quite hideous) mug and addresses the eyes that have attached themselves to his table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delaney

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: post-Mpreg, and creature!fic elements.

Harry takes a sip from his blue-striped (and quite hideous) mug, relishes the tang floating directly up into his nose, and addresses the eyes that have attached themselves to his table.

“Hello,” he says. It’s a pleasant day; there are at least four clouds fit to be compared to Devonshire cream.

Blinking is a serious business for large eyes such as these. One must take into account the incredibly long eyelashes that come with them, after all. Deep green irises with flecks of grey right at the centers have locked themselves to Harry’s face, and very slowly, very deliberately, a smallish hand rises into view and clamps itself firmly to the edge of the table. A second hand follows, one on each side of the eyes. A wide, squashed nose bumps its way up over the table’s lip and settles there, huffing noisy breaths that send spilled sugar granules skittering across the surface.

The eyes own a mess of pure white-blond hair. Harry’s always been fond of towheads.

“My table’s got a face,” Harry observes, and a grin has just got to come. The eyes blink at him meaningfully. One hand creeps over the table, revealing a chubby arm, until equally chubby fingers plant themselves in the small pile of sugar that missed Harry’s mug earlier. There is definitely fiddling going on, fingers pawing the sugar, patting and plucking as if there’s a lost sand bucket somewhere under there.

Harry laughs. “Blink once if you like sugar.”

There’s a lot of blinking going on; Harry’s certain it’s a message of great import, only adults are much too stupid these days. His grin grows and he watches interestedly as the face begins to edge slowly around the table in a clockwise direction, one hand sliding out and fixing to a new spot, the eyes and nose moving to follow, and the second hand finishing the entourage with a purposeful slip and grip.

The baby ends up just beside Harry in a few moments, and now there’s a small blue cotton shirt and comfortable-looking trousers that are much too big in the rear. There are even miniature trainers on tiny feet, and Harry admires them before turning back to the eyes and nose and hands and mop still planted on the table.

“Smashing shoes,” Harry says. Blink, blink is the answer. Fingers creep forward again, heading for Harry’s mug.

“Think you’re too young for coffee.” Harry lifts the mug away and the nose huffs loudly. This Wee Person has dark eyebrows made of fuzz, but boy, do they know how to glower. Harry is just thinking he’s seen that look before when there is a swoop past his table that is definitely adult-sized, and then there is a parentish-looking person kneeling there, both hands tucked comfortably around the Wee Person’s rounded middle, head bent to give a quick kiss to a soft cheek.

“Oh, bother, he’s stolen the table,” says the parental one. Harry can’t see a face; there is too much cheek nuzzling and raspberry blowing to get a good look. The Wee Person seizes a lock of hair just a shade darker than his own and sticks a tongue out pensively between rose-coloured lips.

“Well, then, we’ve simply got to push him out of his chair,” comes the man’s good-natured voice again.

“Excuse me,” Harry says, leaning forward just enough to be properly miffed and not enough to startle the Wee Person. “I sit here all the time. Almost every day, actually.”

“Tell him we bloody well know that.”

Harry is the one blinking now, and then the Wee Person puffs his cheeks at Harry, and _then_ the parental one lifts his face, and then Harry almost drops his mug.

 _“Draco?”_

 _“Harry?”_ Draco asks with transparent surprise. “Merlin Almighty, is that you? How absolutely fortuitous, this chance encounter.”

“Bollocks,” Harry answers, and then is aghast at the fact that he has firmly polluted the Wee Person’s tiny ears. But Draco doesn’t bother to admonish him for it, and the smallish one isn’t paying any attention to anything but whatever’s on the dark and dismal underside of the table. Harry grimaces at the thought, but Draco has already gathered little hands into his grasp and relocated one to the rim of the table and the other to Harry’s trouser leg.

“Now, there, we’re not digging for life-forms. Much more exciting to bother Potter here.”

There’s no mistaking the tone or the gentle touch of Draco’s fingers; this small person is definitely Draco’s.

It’s a bit of a pang, isn’t it? Harry clears his throat and smiles, because congratulations are in order for at least one thing, if not also a marriage and a new house and most likely a pet Bundimun or some such rather. Harry finally decides upon “He’s lovely. How old is he, then?”

“Oh, ancient. Knows much more than me, at any rate.” Draco smiles winningly. “He’s hidden my wand three times and swallowed two Sickles and a Knut since Christmas. The Healers are quite fond of him.”

Harry blinks because he really hasn’t got an answer to that, and besides, now the Official Wand Stealer has begun plucking intently at his trouser leg. Harry is somewhat distracted, but not enough to ignore the unanswered question. “Seriously, Draco. How old?”

“Two in May.”

Harry looks up, half attending to the hand pulling at his seam and half attending to the vague sense of not-right-ness. Something is irking, that age or that date or maybe Draco himself because, damn it, Harry was still in Britain two years and six months ago, and May is only three months off, and did Draco bloody well find a new lover within a single _day_ of his leaving?

Not that they were terribly serious at the time. They’d agreed that a Wizard in America and a Wizard in England couldn’t possibly expect to maintain a meaningful relationship fashioned out of Floo sex. Opportunity of a lifetime, Harry was still young, blah blah blah, and all of it equaled out to Harry gallivanting halfway around the world for two years of the most magnificent opportunity known to mankind, while Draco stayed here and regained his bachelorhood, to do with what he would.

Apparently, what he would was a family. An immediate one.

Harry clears his throat, gives up at last, and eases the Wee Person’s hand off his leg. “Congratulations, then. On your baby.”

“Why, thank you,” Draco says. “So considerate. He’s got stunning eyes, did you see?”

Draco has always confused Harry at the best of times, and he’s just not used to it like he was before. Abrupt changes of subject are still par for the course, it seems. Harry nods, a smidgen irritated, and peers down at the Wee Person again. “Yes. Yes, I saw them, didn’t I? On my table.”

“Godric, Harry, you notice nothing.” Draco tsks and crouches again, turning the Wee Person’s head upward with a touch to his chin. He looks so much like Draco, and there are other features mixed in, from his other parent, obviously. The thatch is all Draco’s colour but much too uncontrolled, the plump mouth reminds Harry of Draco’s, but the nose isn’t his, the eyebrows are darker and more shallowly sloped, and Harry remembers Draco’s features perfectly because he loved looking at them, didn’t he? This child is so adorably Malfoyish-with-a-dash-of-Someone-Else, it’s amusing. If it weren’t so bloody short a time frame between his departure and Draco’s acquiescence of a brand new soul mate, Harry might think it entertaining to figure out the puzzle of who that soul mate is. Only it’s not entertaining, exactly, it’s tugging at him more annoyingly than it should, and bother it all, fine then, the Wee Person’s nose might be a bit familiar, and Harry’s got the feeling he’s seen those brows before. Come to think of it, the face shape is a heart, not Draco’s at all, but… Two years and then some? Salazar, did Draco fall right out of Harry’s bed and into the bed of—

Harry’s brain actually freezes. He’s not sure what causes it exactly, but there it is. All he can see is the Wee Person’s deep green eyes. With flecks of grey.

“Draco,” he croaks. Jerks his head up and stares open-mouthed at his former lover. Probably looks like a whale.

“And he finally cottons on,” Draco offers cheekily.

“Oh. Oh my.”

Draco stands up with an energetic hop, gathering the Wee Person into his arms in a graceful swoop. “Weather’s delightful, let’s go sit outside.”

* * *

“He’s yours,” Draco confirms amicably. The sun lights his face and warms the unbothered expression into a glow. He deposits the Wee Person deftly in the close personal space of the new table outside, plunks each small hand on the edge of said table, and pats the baby’s bum. “There you go, new horizons.”

The journey around begins without a hitch. Slide hand, relocate eyes-nose-mop, repeat.

Harry is still staring. “Mine,” he says faintly.

“Courtesy of your spritely little soldiers,” Draco answers blithely. He sprawls into a chair, legs akimbo, and squints up at Harry, shading his eyes with a lean hand. “Merlin knows how many you got up there before one actually took.”

“Salazar, _Draco_.” Harry rubs a hand from his forehead to his chin. The Wee Person is nearly a quarter of the way done with his voyage.

Draco shrugs. Harry sits. The day is definitely pleasant.

“I’ve a baby,” Harry says dully to the migrating mop.

“Oh, yes, congratulations to you, too, by the way. Couldn’t have happened to a better man, three cheers and hooray and that.” Draco’s grin is positively shameless now. Harry has a hard time deciding whether to wallow in how much he’s missed that grin or glare at Draco in a terrifying fashion.

“But.” And it should have been followed by ‘cocks’ and ‘bloody tosser’ and ‘cocks’ and ‘you’ve a cock’ and ‘I’ve a cock’ and ‘bleeding gay.’ Only it isn’t, because Harry is mostly still trying to locate his tongue, and besides, there’s a minor here and cock talk is just not on.

“I’ll finish this, shall I?” Draco snags Harry’s mug and takes a pull.

“How?” Harry gets out. Finally, something cogent. He asserts his control further by grabbing his mug back.

“Incubus blood in my family.” Draco settles his arms wide, as if they provide chaise lounges here instead of nondescript folding chairs. “Running a bit thin now, I suppose. But apparently, I find someone worthy of fathering my child and it sort of takes matters into its own hands.”

“Someone in your family had a kid with an incubus?” Harry asks, sliding a bit toward gobsmacked, but then, where else has he been for the past five minutes anyway?

“Oh, yes. Great-great-great-grandmother Perplexia Malfoy.”

Now half of Harry’s drink is dripping down the front of his jumper. _“Perplexia?”_

Draco waves his hand as if he’s twirling a quill and Harry’s jumper dries. “Well, her name was actually Pollexia. Had a very clichéd twin called Gemina. But while Aunt Gem was at the top of her class, Grandma Pol was, oh, how shall I say it… _not_.”

Harry chews his lip, and it hurts, so apparently this is really happening. “Perplexia,” he states again.

“What can I say? Should have noticed something when her feverishly lusty dreams actually started coming true. Bed always an embarrassing mess and that. But I suppose she just felt so nice all the time, what with all the shagging she was getting every—”

Harry has the incredible urge to clamp both hands over the Wee Person’s ears. “Draco.”

“They got married!” Draco throws up his hands and manages to signal a waiter in the same movement. “A glass of your lovely blackcurrant iced tea, if you please. He wasn’t even cute, or so it goes. Had a tail, and rumour has it there were horns involved. But if she found true love with a certified sex fiend, who am I to rain on her parade? Here, love, have a napkin.”

Draco hands said implement to the Wee Person, and the Wee Person’s little fingers close absently around it as he continues his slide around the table. A chant starts up from between pink, parted lips, “Nap-puh nap-puh nap-puh nap-puh,” punctuated by the occasional wet pop of a baby-mouth opening and closing animatedly.

“Nap _kin_ , there’s a love.” Draco reaches and ruffles the towheadedness, then smiles contentedly in Harry’s direction, eyebrows raised as if to ask, _Well, is he not the MOST perfect?_

He is. God, is he ever.

“Nap-puh nap-puh nap- _puh_.”

It’s only a matter of time before the Wee Person reaches Harry’s chair again and the curiosity is lively concerning what will take place once that happens. Harry looks at Draco.

“What did you say his name was?”

Draco swallows tea, the ice clicking together in his glass and sending rippled light over the curve of his throat. “Delaney, I said. Retention, Potter, is a must.” He snaps his fingers twice and Harry looks skyward because skyward always gave him strength with Draco.

It turns out that Delaney is far more intriguing to look at, though.

“What’s it mean?” Harry asks softly, because Malfoys adore subtext and the naming of Wee People is a colossal undertaking for their sort.

“‘Challenger’s descendant’, naturally.”

Harry slumps in his chair, legs going long and wilted, and drags a hand over his face again. “Oh, Salazar’s filthy knickers, _Draco_.”

Draco grins at him toothily and beautifully.

It’s hard to wrap his mind around; his thoughts just aren’t that bendy. There’s still that bit of issue about him being male and Draco also being male, because Harry doesn’t know for sure, but he _suspects_ that might throw a wrench into the works. Then again, Harry doesn’t know much of anything about Incubi, except that they are lusty demons who thrive off of massive amounts of sex. And he and Draco most assuredly had what any self-respecting Incubus would consider massive amounts of sex two and a half-and-then-some years ago.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love Draco. He liked him an awful lot. In fact, his emotions were definitely in between the two, listing more to the deeper side of the ocean. It was just that it hadn’t occurred to him that he and Draco were ever in it for keeps. There was too much fun in the endeavour, too many snickers and bad jokes and laissez faire-ness about everything. Lack of planning, a lot of showing up randomly at doors with a hankering to be in the other’s bed within five seconds, or maybe ten if there was tea. No getting a house together. Nothing that shouted, ‘Sit down, Harry, you’re a family man now!’ He liked being with Draco. He liked Draco’s white teeth and the gold strands that made his hair glow, and the way Draco stabbed the air with his finger when he was making an especially good point about something. He’d just never looked at Draco and thought, _This man wants to have my babies._

Partially because men didn’t usually— or ever— have other men’s babies. But mostly because he had been sure, in a wistful sort of way, that Draco would eventually find something deeper, and so would he. Just, not together. And when the paid exchange with America had come along, Harry viewed it as the sign for just such an occasion.

Clearly, Nature’d had other plans. Harry wonders if there is more up Nature’s sleeve, and just how far Nature would be willing to go to get her point across.

He wonders if he fully understands the point.

* * *

They wait while Draco drinks his iced tea— quite the undertaking, hasn’t changed, really— and orders a set of cherry scones for takeaway. _Allergic to strawberries, that one,_ Draco says, pointing at his son with one finger. _We had a hell of a time at Christmas. There were sweeties in a shop, and I got a crash-course in Muggle hospitals._

Harry nods a lot. He’s in a bit of a fog.

“Would you like a handle bag?” the girl inquires politely when she brings the scones, and Harry thinks she’s awfully on top of it, and so prompt, only Draco opens his mouth first.

“We’re fine, cheers.” He stands, lifts the Wee Person with both hands, and deposits him directly against Harry’s chest, and suddenly Harry is holding a warm body with astonishingly big, attentive eyes.

“Um,” is the summation of Harry’s response.

“There you go, ta,” says Draco, smiling as if there’s nothing in the world that needs frowning at. He picks up the takeaway pouch and his leftover iced tea, and heads for the gate.

“Yes,” Harry answers to thin air.

The Wee Person makes a popping sound with his lips and grips Harry’s arm as if he’s about to ride a Muggle rollercoaster.

“Okay.” And Harry rises and follows Draco, because, well, he’s got Draco’s kid in his arms. Never mind the details.

On the road, Draco dallies in front of a newspaper stand while Harry shuts the patio gate behind him, and then begins to walk. Harry walks, too.

“So this is my son.” A bit stupid, true, but if there was ever a time for a little forgiveness on that front, this is definitely it.

Draco waves a hand, glancing back. “Fruit of your loins. Yes.”

Harry shares a look with the Wee Person— bloody hell, _Delaney_. The baby’s hand has wound itself into his shirt, pulling a button free of its hole. Delaney gives a sudden huff and plunks his head onto Harry’s chest with a significant thump. Harry winces. “Ow.”

Delaney doesn’t even twitch. His hand is a warm little pocket against Harry’s chest.

Five steps on, Harry has to juggle the baby, on account of the fact that Delaney has gone as limp as overcooked pasta. Draco waits for Harry to catch up, and snaps his fingers. “Oh, fantastic, he likes you.”

Harry peers awkwardly down at the tangle of white-blond locks. “How can you tell?”

“Gone to sleep, hasn’t he?” Draco flashes a grin that makes Harry go unexpectedly weak in the knees. “No better proof.”

Harry thinks that, if allowed to hang about with Draco for the majority of his childhood, Delaney will end up a very eccentric individual indeed.

* * *

It’s about five minutes’ of walking to get to Draco’s current abode— good god, does Draco really live this close to where Harry’s been stopping in for coffee daily for the last month?— and that’s all the time it takes for Harry to decide he will be very, very put out if he has to relinquish the great big ball of sleepy in his arms. Delaney is hunched over, his back curled in a way that would make a Muggle chiropractor flinch. He’s a noisy breather. Takes after Draco, then: Harry’s willing to bet that this kid will never snore, but he’ll breathe like a terrifically angry goose any night— or day— of the week.

Harry decides his sleep has been too quiet of late anyway, and that he’ll have to get started on learning to do everything one-handed if he’s going to be holding Delaney for the rest of his life.

“The homestead, at last.” Draco spreads both arms wide enough to hug the whole house in front of them. Which isn’t anything to sniff at, not at all: it’s got bay windows and a glassed-in entryway, and a neat little tulip garden to the left. There is a tabby cat wallowing in it, looking very much like it has sprouted purple petals out of each ear.

Draco opens the door and the cat gets charming very quickly, racing over and flumping and rolling and mraowing until Harry’s shoes are dusted with dirt and orange fur.

“Yours?” Harry asks, wishing he now had three hands.

“My landlord is a barmy cat lady.”

 _Landlord_ and _oh_ and “Where are the rest?”

“The rest?”

Harry nods at the feline population of one. “Cats.”

Draco stares at him as if he’s gone all yellow or eaten the baby or something. “Isn’t one enough?”

Harry starts to say no, and then wonders if he’s wrong about that.

The front hallway is a little too dark, but the house itself opens up quite nicely into a winding staircase leading to multiple floors, and a lovely kitchen beyond, full of green tile and potted plants. The dining and sitting rooms are neat and thoughtfully decorated with sleek, costly-looking furniture. Harry can tell immediately that a lot, if not all of it, is Draco’s influence. “Does your landlady live here, too?”

“She’s on the back property.” Draco gestures towards the furthest wall, heading straight into the kitchen. Harry toes off his shoes and follows, listening to the words of a water-conjuring spell and a heating charm. Before he even steps foot in the kitchen, a kettle starts to shriek and Draco calls out, “Tea?”

Harry jumps and fumbles a hand over Delaney’s ear. “Shh!”

“Nonsense,” Draco says blithely. “He’d sleep through the bloody World Cup. You still take honey?”

“I… Yes.” The kitchen is full of light. Harry moves to the table and takes a seat gingerly. Delaney lets out a tiny snort and slumps further down Harry’s chest. If the baby had his way, he’d ooze right out of Harry’s arms onto the floor. “Is it naptime, then?”

Draco checks his tea ministrations for a moment in order to stretch both arms up over his head. “Yes, actually. But I think I’ll forgo it today. In the interest of hospitality.”

Draco is still so slim, and muscular, if the grooves of his hips are anything to go by. Harry leans forward, trying to see a little more bare stomach, and is reminded rapidly that he is holding _Draco’s child_ in his arms and he should not be trying to get glimpses of naked skin or thinking about ways to get the clothing off of that body, god almighty, what in the world is wrong with him? Harry snaps up straight and feels the blush flame across his cheeks.

“So,” Draco says, bringing two steaming mugs to the table and sliding a placemat over to Harry. He Summons biscuits, cream, sugar, and napkins with a single wave of his hand. And grins across the table. “What have you been up to?”

* * *

So there’s America to talk about. It all feels pretty mundane to Harry, him having lived it and all, and of course, next to today, every day will always just be mundane now, but Harry gives Draco all the details he can remember about the job and the accolades, the people he met and the weird ways Americans live their day-to-day lives. Draco didn’t used to have a long attention span, but he never looks away from Harry except to glance down from time to time at Delaney. Who is twitchy. Twitchy twitchy. Obviously he didn’t inherit all of Draco’s sleeping habits. Which causes Harry to choke a little on his tea because, yes, that’s one of his own sleeping habits. People have complained.

He doesn’t want to talk about people, though. They were all before Draco anyway, and Draco complained _a lot_ more than they did. So.

Draco tells him about house-shopping, designing Delaney’s room and decisively not helping his landlady with the flowers out front. Which Harry gathers is fine with the landlady. Probably to the benefit of the flowers, too. What Draco doesn’t talk about is being pregnant— can Harry even use that word for a man? Obviously it means the same thing, but it just sounds so odd, describing Draco as pregnant. Did his belly get all round? Did he have contractions? Where did the baby come out of? And Harry realizes he’s thinking about Draco’s naked body and netherparts again, and how well he used to know them both, and quickly shuts his brain up.

“What?” Draco asks.

“Uh.” And Harry is once again stupid, obviously. Because he looks.

Draco follows his eyes down and looks at his abdomen as well. “What? Do I have biscuit in my lap?”

God. If only that were all. Harry would gladly remove it for him.

And then Draco begins to laugh. Sets his tea down and laughs so hard Delaney actually _does_ give a jolt as if he’s waking up. Harry tries his best to shield the baby from his completely rude father.

“Oh, Harry, what do you want to know? Just ask.”

He doesn’t. But Draco guesses and tells him anyway. Harry’s really got to work on his stealth.

By half six, Harry’s got a list of questions, and it’s getting longer the more Draco tells him. Which is fairly irritating, all things considered. But he doesn’t know how to turn talk of Draco’s family and the new alterations to the Wizarding education system into ‘So, have you perhaps had any boyfriends since me and did you bring them home and sleep with them and introduce them to my son?’ As if he has a right to be all clingy and rabid over a baby he’s just met. For all he knows, Draco’s annoyed with having had to support Delaney all on his own, with Harry never calling to check in and find out if he might perhaps have fallen preggers while he was away.

Delaney refuses to wake up for more than a whimpery request for his daddy (Harry doesn’t know, he still isn’t fluent in ‘Delaney’, but he’s willing to trust Draco’s judgment), so eventually Draco takes him upstairs and shows Harry Delaney’s room while he changes his diaper and gets him ready for bed. There’s a nice rainbow lamp that throws giraffes and grindylows on the walls, and a family of little stuffed unicorns with fuzzy silver manes on the dresser. Delaney shoves his whole hand into his mouth and proceeds to suck the life force out of it, and doesn’t seem to notice his bum being powdered and his shirt and trousers being exchanged for a sky-blue snapsuit.

And then Draco lets Harry put him in his crib. It’s the single most lovely experience of Harry’s life.

“Harry.”

“Hm?”

“We should go downstairs, now. Finish our tea.”

“Mmhm.” One second. His hands seem rather attached to the crib.

“Harry.” Draco’s fingers slide around his forearm, almost like an olden-days woman taking the arm of her companion. “Come on, before he wakes up.”

Harry would argue that such circumstances are unlikely, what with Draco being the loudest parent known to the Western World, but the heat of Draco’s palm has him a little distracted from his distraction. Er, son.

Oh god. Harry has a son.

“It keeps hitting me,” he confides as they head down the stairs, Draco just a little behind him. “I’m a father.” And then he cringes at his word choice because ‘father’ isn’t necessarily the same as ‘sperm donor’. But Draco doesn’t call attention to it.

“I know. It’ll be like that for a while. Took me nearly three months just to wake up in the morning without realising it anew for myself.”

A while. Does that mean Draco will want Harry over regularly so that he can get used to it? That would be… Well, that would be really nice. But Harry isn’t a heathen. He doesn’t invite himself over to other people’s houses or into their beds, say.

Though, looking at the fine lines of Draco’s jaw, the slope of his bare throat where his top button parts, and the slender angles of his wrists and fingers, Harry is about _this close_ to making an exception.

He reels himself in at the bottom of the stairs; he doesn’t even know if Draco is single anymore.

The tea’s cold, but before Harry can ask for more, Draco speaks.

“Would you like to take a walk out back? There’s a garden.”

Yes. Yes, he would. But Harry glances at the stairs.

“It’s all right,” Draco says. “I’ve got the room charmed. I’ll hear any noises he makes.”

That’s quite handy, then. Harry nearly offers his arm to Draco again before reality slaps him in the face and reminds him it isn’t the 1800s anymore.

The garden is pretty small, but also very nice. In the dusk, Draco shows him hydrangeas and roses, their leaves turned gold by the setting sun. At first, the sound of gurgling makes Harry look around for cats, but it becomes apparent pretty quickly that it’s just Delaney.

“Is he awake?”

Draco listens for a moment, brow slightly furrowed. Harry watches his face. Actually, ‘commits every line of it to memory all over again’ might be a better description.

“No, he’s just chatty.”

“Even when he sleeps?”

“Especially when he sleeps.” Draco’s expression changes and Harry’s heart lurches all over again. Good lord, he thought he’d been pretty far along the road to being over Draco Malfoy. All it takes is one afternoon in his company and Harry’s tripping and skidding back to square one again.

It’s not like Harry didn’t date in America. It was never more than casual, though, and he figured Draco was dating back in England anyhow. Now, he’s not so sure. Actually, he’s rather hoping… Yes, well.

The dark corners of Harry’s mind are certain that Draco’s got grievances with him. Because he left in the first place, because he never came back to help with the baby, because he’s only just now getting his act together. It’s all rather ludicrous, and Harry knows it: after all, there was no way he could possibly have known about Delaney. Draco never told him. Until today when he plunked the baby right down in Harry’s lap. Literally.

Harry still feels bad, like an interloper who can look and look, but not touch. No attaching one’s self to other people’s toys.

“So. Allergic to strawberries, huh?”

Draco nods. “Scariest day of my life. And all he did was get all blotchy and puff up a little.”

Harry considers. “I wonder where he gets it from. You’re not allergic.”

“No, I certainly am not.” Draco hitches an eyebrow at him, and Harry just knows he’s recalling that night with the strawberries and chocolate and toffee chips. Harry blushes, tries not to react, but it’s too late: his lower regions remember that night as well. They remember just fine. He shoves his hands in his pockets and shortens his stride, trying to hide anything visible.

The breeze picks up and Draco shivers. Harry reaches out without thinking and pulls his hand back. “Are you cold?”

Draco shrugs. “It’s not too bad. I just—”

“Feel it more when the season’s changing.” Harry stops and stares at Draco wide-eyed, wondering if he’s going to have to yank his own foot out of his mouth. Draco stares back, looking a little bit amused, and something else. Nostalgic, maybe? Like he’s seeing Harry overlaid with something else.

Or someone else.

Harry coughs. “We could go in. If you want.”

Draco shrugs again. “All right.”

The kitchen now feels cosy, full of yellow light from the overheads, gleaming off the warm wooden cabinetry. Draco heats the kettle again and pours himself a cup of tea. Harry declines one of his own, content (or as close as one can get when one is wishing for so much more) to watch Draco drink his. The curve of his fingers around the bowl of the mug, the way his right index taps at the handle and his left index curls a little over the rim… Delaney continues a low-key gurgle over the charm, and Harry’s heart is thudding a steady, sweet beat through his veins.

When the tea is gone, Draco gives him a belated tour of the house, marching him up three floors to see the empty guest rooms. Draco’s room, the master bedroom, looks mercifully free of the influence of another person, and Harry lets out a long breath on the way out, keeping it low so Draco doesn’t turn around. The idea of someone else so close to Draco, near enough to touch and hold and call their son by name, sends up a melancholy ache in Harry’s chest. He doesn’t want to think about it.

Draco ends by showing him the two bathrooms, one lavish and antique upstairs, the other tiny and utilitarian back by the kitchen. They both wander out into the sitting room, and Harry notes how dark it is outside the bay window.

“Getting late.” Draco’s chin juts forward and Harry almost chokes with how much he remembers, remembers and misses. “You know. If you’ve got elsewhere to be.”

“I…” Harry doesn’t think so, but it’s possible he’s forgotten, what with the mild shock of discovering he’s a father. “Draco?”

“Because I wouldn’t want to keep you. From home.” Draco brushes past him, straightening a picture on the mantelpiece and a Snitch-shaped knickknack beside it. He doesn’t look at Harry.

“Draco, are you… trying to say I should leave?” He doesn’t want to go, not at all, but he’s already done quite enough to Draco, hasn’t he? Leaving him pregnant and all— god, _how_ could he have managed to _miss_ that?— to go be amazing in America. It’s Draco’s house and if he wants Harry to go, he’ll go.

“Definitely not saying that,” Draco snorts, mostly under his breath. But Harry’s standing right there. It reminds him how much he adores Draco’s passive-aggressiveness. Yes, Harry’s completely gone all over again and not admitting it yet. Or at least not admitting it to Draco.

“It’s not… all that late,” Harry tries out. Actually scuffs his shoe against the floor. For god’s sake, he’s reverted to a geeky preteen.

“Still early, really,” Draco adds, a little too fast. Their gazes meet for a moment. Harry is the first to look away. Draco clears his throat.

“I mean,” Harry says, and shrugs, “I don’t have to be in for work especially early tomorrow. I’m only up early when I go for coffee.”

“Oh, I know, I’ve seen you.” Draco’s eyes go even wider than before and he steps back.

Harry’s heart gives a hard thump to the middle of his ribcage. “You’ve seen me?”

“Yes,” Draco says after a second’s hesitance. “Might’ve. The other day.”

And it occurs to Harry right then— all right, so he’s a little slow on the uptake— that Draco knew which table to send Delaney to. He’d even said so. Like he was used to seeing Harry at that table.

He can’t quite keep still. And he can’t quite keep from staring at Draco. The nose Harry used to kiss and the hair that he recalls is _so_ soft, and the stretch of skin right there where Draco’s pulse flutters in his throat and the way his eyes get so damn bright under the right lighting—

“Oh, Salazar, I didn’t know how you’d take it,” Draco breathes in a rush. “Just coming into the shop like that and throwing him at you. I thought you might— but you didn’t, thank Godric, and here we are, and you’re _here_. I never thought you’d be here.”

Maybe he means the sitting room. Maybe the whole house. Or maybe just ‘here’, as in ‘in the vicinity of his baby and Draco and everything he could have possibly wanted but was too stupid to hold onto’.

Okay, maybe that’s just Harry’s interpretation.

“I _love_ him,” Harry breathes, as if he’s talking about a nice car, but it’s still the truth. How Delaney wiggled his way into Harry’s heart so quickly is a mystery to him, but he thinks it’s kind of like how Ron’s kids have become so dear, and how it only took Harry two seconds to decide he loved Teddy Lupin from the bottom of his soul. Kids. More powerful than any megalomaniacal overlord.

Draco sighs in obvious relief. “That’s a good, good thing, Harry. I was kind of… counting on it.”

Harry stares at him. “Huh?”

And Draco _blushes_. So, so red. It’s precious, even more so because Harry can count the times he’s seen such a thing on one… finger. Draco avoids his gaze, looking instead somewhere in the vicinity of Harry’s left side. “I figured if you met him, and, you know… knew he was yours, you’d…”

“I’d what?” Harry prods, because he really doesn’t want to be the one to admit anything and if he’s right, Draco’s about to help him out. Maybe. God willing.

“That you might want to sort of live with him,” Draco finishes in a garbled rush. When he looks up, though, something sparks in his eyes, and he spreads his hands wide. “He’s adorable! It’s really hard to resist, believe me, I know.”

Harry could mention how adorable someone else is being at the moment. But he’s not going to. He’s singing inside, knowing Draco wants him, that Draco was the one to ask, and now he’ll just smile and suavely answer, “Draco, I love you, please, please, I want you back.”

So much for _that_.

Draco chokes, then launches himself into Harry’s embrace, clinging as tightly as a monkey. He winds his fingers through Harry’s hair and drags his mouth into a breathless kiss, all tongue and teeth, as if they’d only just said goodbye at the door to Draco’s old bachelor flat two hours ago instead of almost two years. He sucks on Harry’s tongue and bites at his lips and plunges so deep Harry can still taste the blackcurrant iced tea from the café. His body perks up in one second flat and Harry backs Draco into the wall and proceeds to have his way with him.

Except that Draco breaks off and presses their foreheads together, holding Harry’s face in both hands and breathing over his parted lips. “Wanted to Floo you,” he whispers in something very much like a whine. “Wanted to _tell_ you. But… you’d been so happy to be going, I—”

Harry gathers him in again and kisses him voiceless, until he’s gasping for air, hitching his leg up around Harry’s. “This,” he tries. “This is. Makes me... ‘S better’n all that.”

Draco moans and pulls him in again. “You’ll— You’ll stay, then,” he manages amongst the kisses.

“God, yes, please,” Harry breathes, and sets about making sure he’s understood.

~fin~


End file.
